What is Literature?

Throughout the past decades the definition of literature has expanded.  As technology advances in society, literature has evolved from being basic traditional novels into more advanced forms such as blogs or comics.  In Alan Moore’s graphic novel “Light of Thy Countenance”, he exemplifies the new form of literature that has emerged in society.  With such advanced technology, writers have the opportunity to take their basic literature and present it in a whole new manner.  Even though this novel breaks societies stereotype of traditional literature, “Light of Thy Countenance” still is seen as literature from my point of view because it tells a story within the comic and texts.  Take away the pictures and the format of the comic book; “Light of Thy Countenance” would be “traditional literature”.

In Alan Moore’s “Light of Thy Countenance” his creatively incorporates the idea of how new media and society is taking of individuals lives.  He writes from the narrator of the television,” I am the only pure true relationship that you will ever know.”  Ironically this story is showing how technology is taking away from the way we should live our lives and destroying personal relationship within our daily lives. 

If one looks at examples such as “The 21 Steps” story; the author presents his literature through texts in Google Earth.  Many traditionalists might find such a story to be a disgrace to literature, but I find it to be a very intellectual advancement that adds to the beauty and creativity of literature.  Literature is unique in many ways because there are so many different forms and types of literature.  Naming texts and writing literature is very controversial and cannot really be done because it’s a personal opinion.  As technology arises and new media begins to take over more and more the older generation might not understand the advancements that are taking place.

East vs. West: M Butterfly

Throughout the play M Butterfly, writer David Henry utilizes characters of different gender and race to support themes of nation, gender, race, and ethnicity.  The East and the West are two parts of the world illustrated in the play.  The West is portrayed as being masculine, dominant, controlling, and successful while the East is seen as being powerless, week, frightened and very vulnerable. In ACT ONE, Scene 10 Gallimard describes Song as, “Outwardly bold and unspoken, yet her heard is shy and afraid It is the Oriental in her at war with her western education”(27).    Gallimard’s western presence brings Song to attempt to act more Western by speaking with a dominant, bold tone, yet her true character shows with the shyness and fear that overrides.  This scene is the first encountering in which Gallimard and Song converse within “her” home.  Gallimard and Songs relationship is a prime example of the relationship between the East and West.  After their interactions in the apartment, Gallimard describes how he, “felt for the first time that rush of power- the absolute power of a man”(32).  Little does he realize, the role is really reversed.  Song is utilizing Gaallimard’s western power against him.  Gallimard describes Orientals as, “Always submitting to a greater force”(46).  Western Gallimard is acting arrogant and proud. The themes of gender and racial differences separate the East from the West.  The man being from the West and the women being from the east symbolic represents the different cultures as well.  

Developing Theme- Pattern Recognition

Globalization is a major reoccurring theme throughout William Gibson’s novel, “Pattern Recognition.”  Within the novel, Gibson utilizes the Internet and the cyber-world in order to portray the boundaries that are being destroyed between different cultures throughout the world.  Starting from page two of the novel, Gibson introduces main character’s Damien and Cayce and informs readers how a simple task of typing there name into the Google search engine can tell you exactly about their profession and life.  Both main characters represent globalization due to their lifestyle. 

The idea of boundaries between cultures being broken down comes from the easy communication and easy travel that society allows between almost all the countries across the world.  Damien and Cayce communicate instantly via electronic mail even though Cayce is in the United States and Damien is all the way in Russia.  Each country they travel to has its cultural differences, but they still remain very similar and intertwined do to cyberspace and Internet.  Societies have the ability to connect with one another in seconds, allowing ideas such as marketing to be aimed at a single global networking market rather than having hundreds of individual countries’ markets.   

Another main theme within this novel is marketing.  Starting out from page one of the novel we are introduced to Cayce’s website which exemplifies the theme of marketing from the very beginning of the novel.  The rise of marketing as a main aspect globally brings questioning to human morals and ideals. Individuals used to be able to carry on a random normal conversation in social places, such as a bar, but now can one really tell if the other individual is just marketing something to you? Throughout the novel Cayce exemplifies major marketing tactics that really makes the reader question individuals around them and society as a whole.